


What You Don't Know

by kimberquel (kimberly_a)



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: But Some People Are Recovering From Injuries, Everybody Lives, Happy Ending, Hospitals, Light Angst, M/M, Nobody is Dead, Post Season 4, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 12:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20210110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimberly_a/pseuds/kimberquel
Summary: Eliot has no idea what Q went through





	What You Don't Know

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Andy Grammer’s song “Don’t Give Up On Me,” which was posted by Mandy in the Queliot Fans Facebook group (and thanks also to the encouragement of the members there)

**Margo**

Eliot woke feeling hazy in that “I’ve taken some really great drugs” kind of way. But when he opened his eyes, he slowly began to grasp that he wasn’t crashed out on the sofa of the physical kids’ cottage in the middle of a raging party—he was in a very quiet white room. He was either wasted enough to be hallucinating or he was in a hospital. Probably a hospital.

So they probably weren’t the fun kind of drugs.

And his stomach wasn’t feeling a “Hell, I’m really craving some nachos” kind of way, either. It was feeling pretty shitty, actually.

He tried to sit up, and Margo’s voice immediately said from beside him, “No, El. Stay still! Let me get the nurse and tell them you woke up.” Eliot felt her soft, small hand in his while her other hand reached frantically toward a button beside the bed. He lay back down willingly, because even that slight movement had caused sharp pain in his stomach.

Some people—one, two, he wasn’t sure—came running into the room, but he was fading out again. This really was similar to how he’d felt at some of the better parties he’d been to. Minus the extreme stomach pain.

Next time he woke up, he still felt drugged in that way he now figured was probably morphine, and he lifted the blanket to look down at his stomach, only to find he was wearing one of those atrociously gauche hospital gowns, and he could feel that he was otherwise nude.

On second thought, this could have perhaps provided opportunities for some interesting roleplay if only his stomach hadn’t hurt so much.

The gown was loose on both sides, so he lifted it and saw his stomach swathed in white bandages.

“What happened?” he asked, but it felt like he was trying to talk with someone else’s lips and someone else’s tongue, and so no sound emerged. It was an interesting feeling.

He saw Margo asleep beside the bed, slumped in a chair that looked really wretchedly uncomfortable. It didn’t suit her at all. She was better suited to her Fillory throne. Margo was far too fabulous for a plastic hospital chair.

He loved her.

“I love you, Bambi,” he said, rolling his head on the pillow so he could see her better, and this time the words came out through his uncoordinated mouth.

She woke with a start, then laughed—but it sounded almost like a sob, not very Margo-like, because she was always such a fierce bitch—and grabbed his hand again. He would never have guessed that she’d been asleep a moment ago when she growled, “I love you, too, dickhead. Don’t you ever pull this kind of motherfucking stunt again, you hear me?”

_What kind of stunt?_ Eliot wondered. Then he realized he’d said it out loud, because he heard the words in the room.

“The kind of stunt where you get yourself possessed by a fucking monster for months until I have to stab you with a fucking magic axe so I don’t even know if I killed you or not,” she said. And then he heard a sob. Just one. A little one. And then he thought he heard Margo crying, but that couldn’t be right, could it?

He was possessed by a monster? He vaguely remembered something about trying to get out. And someone there who was helping him. And Q. Quentin was there.

“Q?” he said, even though he hadn’t meant to. His head wasn’t working right and he kind of wanted to just go back to sleep.

“Of course the fucking first thing you do is ask for that nerd,” Margo complained, but there was something soft in her voice.

Eliot was regaining a bit of his faculties, no doubt thanks to his long and extensive experience with recreational drug usage, so he pointed out groggily, “Actually, the first thing I did, darling, was tell you I love you.”

Margo smiled at him in that way she had that was only for him. “That’s true. So you do still have your priorities in order.”

He started to laugh, but it made his stomach feel like holy fucking crap, so he stopped and asked again, “What happened?” This time his tongue and lips felt like his own, and they worked, so the words came out sounding normal. At least, they sounded normal to _him_. He knew from experience that such things were extremely subjective, but Margo looked as if he’d said something that made sense, so he assumed he’d spoken somewhat intelligibly.

Margo took his hand in both of hers. “I’m not going to sugar-coat this for you, El, because I know you’re not an infant. You went and got yourself possessed by a fucking monster, terrorized a lot of people, murdered some of them, treated Q like your own personal fucking plaything—though without any actual fucking, as far as I know—and then we had to stab you with an axe in order to get the fucking thing out of you ... which left you with a bit of a stomach issue.” She glanced away, buffed her nails, and then looked back at him. “So yes, you can thank _me_ for that gaping hole in your stomach but also for the fact that you now once again have control over your own delectable body.”

Eliot reconsidered the hallucinogenics theory. But Margo looked serious, and she rarely looked serious in his entertaining hallucinations. And he was smart enough not to engage in anything that caused hallucinations that were anything but entertaining.

“And Q?” he asked again. “Is he ... Did I ...”

“Oh, quit it with the fussy mommy routine—it’s completely boring. Quentin is fine. Well, I mean, he’s in the infirmary at Brakebills, but he’ll be fine.”

Eliot tried to sit up again and was immediately reminded that this was a very bad idea, so lay back down like a good little medical patient.

Definitely some roleplay material there. Put a pin in that for future contemplation.

“What happened to Q?” he asked, his voice embarrassingly hoarse after that ill-advised attempt to sit up.

Margo waved a hand. “Something about getting hurt when they disposed of the vessels holding the monsters. Blah blah blah. I wasn’t paying that much attention when I was waiting to find out if I’d fucking _killed_ you.” She huffed out a breath. “But Julia’s been sitting in the waiting room for a while. You want to ask her?”

“Way to bury the lead, bitch!” But then they grinned at each other. “Yeah, let her in.”

Margo gave him a peck on the cheek and said, “I’ll give you two some bonding time. See you when she’s done.” Then she straightened her shoulders and walked out of the room as if she owned the whole fucking hospital.

**Julia**

Julia came in with a hesitant smile. “How are you feeling?” she asked. It came out sounding like she meant it, like she cared.

“I guess sort of like I got possessed by a psychopath and then hit with a magical axe. How are you?” He gave her a smirk. He was definitely feeling more like himself, and whatever wasn’t quite right yet could definitely be faked in front of Julia. She didn’t know him nearly as well as Margo. Nobody did.

Except maybe Q.

_Fifty years. Who gets proof of concept like that?_

“How...” Eliot started, then cleared his throat. “How’s Q? What happened? Is he all right?”

“He got hurt,” Julia said gently, far more gently than Margo would have done, which was kind of annoying. He wanted her to just give him the short version like Margo. Just rip off the Band-Aid.

“And?” Eliot waved his hand to encourage a speedier divulging of information.

Julia laughed a little. “I told him you’d be like this. Impatient.” She gave him her sweet smile. How could her smile still be so sweet after everything she’d been through? He thought of Q’s sweet smile, and something in his chest tightened. “He got hurt, but he’ll be fine.” She patted his hand reassuringly. He hated that he found it reassuring, because it should have felt condescending but it didn’t. Somehow with her it didn’t. “He’s mostly fine already, but they wouldn’t give him permission to come here no matter how much he begged and threatened.” She laughed a little. “He’s not quite up to it yet. But he really wants to see you. That’s why I came.” She smiled. “Next best thing, right?”

“So you’re here to check up on me and report back to Q?”

Julia shrugged. “I guess if you want to put it that way, sure.”

“Well, then, tell him to heal the fuck up and get over here, because I’ve got a gaping hole in my stomach that they don’t seem to want to heal with magic, and so I’m not going anywhere anytime soon and I want to find out what the fuck I did while I was possessed.” Eliot ended the tirade by attempting to cross his arms, but he was connected to too many wires and tubes, so it didn’t work out quite as regally intimidating as he’d intended.

Julia’s lips tightened at Eliot’s petulant demands, her eyes suddenly blazing. “You want to know what you did while you were possessed? You treated him like shit, Eliot.”

But at his sharp breath, she hid her face in her hands for a moment, then smoothed her hair. She smiled at him again, softly. “But that’s not your fault. It wasn’t you. It was the monster possessing you. Q never got it confused with who you are.”

She sat down in Margo’s plastic chair and looked down at her hands in her lap, then back up at him. “I’m not really here to check up on you for Q. I’m here to tell you what you did to him, and what he did for you. Because I don’t think anybody else is going to tell you, and I think you should know. I think you should _want_ to know, if you’re anything like the person Q thinks you are.”

“Yes,” Eliot replied immediately. “I do want to know. Everything. Even ... maybe especially ... if it’s bad. What did I do to him?” God, what had he done?

“It isn’t really what you did, exactly. It’s what the monster did. It used Q’s feelings for you against him. And it made him ... it made him show how much he cares about you.” She gave him a searching look before she continued.

“Q probably would have preferred to keep that to himself, but at the same time he wasn’t ashamed. Just determined. Determined to save you. And he didn’t care if anyone saw it.” She gave him another look, fiercer this time. Almost capable of Margo. “He loves you, Eliot. Like, _really_ loves you.”

Eliot didn’t know what to say to that. Now that he was more lucid, he remembered being inside the monster’s mind, remembered what he’d watched, how he’d seen himself so casually, so callously reject Q’s suggestion that they give it a try ... give _them_ a try.

And apparently Q had still put his feelings on display for everyone, even believing that Eliot didn’t feel the same way. Believing that Eliot didn’t want him, he’d still been willing to show everyone else that he loved Eliot. Unrequitedly, or so he thought.

Julia swallowed and took a deep breath before continuing, her eyes on the floor. “He nearly let that thing kill him, strangle him right in front of me. Q stared it straight in the eyes from an inch away, because they were _your_ eyes and he wasn’t going to let that thing kill you when he believed with all his heart that you were still in there.” She turned her face away slightly, eyes glistening. “All his heart. He believed in you with all his heart, Eliot. He was literally willing to die for you. That’s how much he loves you.” She turned back to look straight at him, determination showing in her eyes along with the unshed tears.

“He’s feeling confused,” she said. “Because of what you said when you broke through the monster’s control. Something about peaches and plums? He won’t tell me what it’s about, just that it was something private that would prove it was really you ... and I can see he seems torn up about it for some reason.”

Of course Q would be confused. Last thing he knew, he’d been saying those same words to Eliot, and Eliot had been brushing them aside as if they didn’t matter at all. He couldn’t know that everything had changed inside Eliot, that it was Q’s bravery, Q’s love that had given him the strength to break through. It must have been confusing, having his own rejected words thrown back in his face. Sure, it had proven he was Eliot, still alive within the monster, but how could Q possibly know the rest?

“I have to see him,” Eliot insisted. “Right now. I don’t care if I’m cut in fucking half. Tell them to get me to Brakebills. I need to talk to Q.”

“I don’t think the hospital staff is really going to listen to me...” Julia trailed off, obviously surprised by the urgency of Eliot’s reaction.

“Then get me Margo,” Eliot said. “Because we’re planning a jail break and she’s just the bitch I need to help me.”

**Quentin**

It ended up that they didn’t have to initiate an _actual_ jail break, which was a bit disappointing. Just the threat of one from a severely-injured student well known to be headstrong and unpredictable seemed enough to convince the Brakebills staff that bringing the considerably healthier Quentin Coldwater to the extremely insistent Eliot Waugh was preferable than taking the risk that Eliot would attempt the opposite maneuver and die in the process.

In one of those unfair situations of which the world is full, Q got to sit in a reclining chair while Eliot could only raise the head of his bed slightly. It was utterly humiliating.

Also, he was still wearing the hospital gown, and this was not yet the time for those potential future roleplaying fantasies to be put into action. Instead, the pastel patterned gown was simply another humiliation piled upon others.

And he wasn’t even going to think about the catheter.

They wheeled Quentin in, seated in a fairly comfortable-looking chair. Eliot fumed that Margo had not merited the same solicitude.

“So...” Quentin stalled, glancing around the room, anywhere but at Eliot. “Why aren’t they using magic to heal your stomach?”

“Something to do with the lingering effect of the magical axe,” Eliot replied, impatient with pleasantries but uncertain how to move the conversation to more important matters.

“Julia said she came to visit you...” Quentin began.

“Are you still in love with me?” The words just popped out, a bit like they had when he’d been heavily doped up on the morphine. Maybe the morphine was still having more of an effect than he realized. Or maybe he just really needed to know the answer.

Quentin’s eyes went wide, his mouth slightly open as he suddenly stared directly at Eliot. Then he snapped his mouth shut and looked away again, his face shutting down into blandness, but Eliot knew him well enough to identify his anger by the lines in his forehead . “So Julia talked to you.”

“That didn’t come out right,” Eliot winced. “I meant ... how could you, after what I did?”

“What you did?” Quentin gazed directly at him again, the anger flaring to the surface. “Do you mean when you rejected me in the first place? Or do you mean when you used my own pathetic words to prove to me that you were alive, never thinking about how those words might hurt me? Because, yeah, well done, El, you proved you were still alive, and I stayed focused on that as long as I could, because that was the important thing—saving you—because you were still alive in there. It wasn’t until later that it burned me that you chose those particular fucking words to prove that it was you. You used the specific words that would dredge up the most painful moment ... I mean, Jesus, El! In its own way, it was worse than when Arielle died! After an entire life together, after letting you know me better than anyone else ever has, after all of that ... after _all_ of that, I offered myself to you, offered you the possibility of a life together, and you said that wasn’t what you wanted, and then you threw that in my face again when it was most likely to hurt.”

Quentin stood up, even though they’d told him he wasn’t strong enough to stand yet and should stay in the chair. Eliot worried and wished Q would sit back down, because they’d said he wasn’t strong enough.

“Was that what you meant,” Quentin asked viciously, pacing the floor on unsteady feet, “when you said you were sorry for what you did? Or was there something else?” He stopped and stared at Eliot again, holding onto the arm of the chair, wobbling slightly, and Eliot worried, just wishing he would sit down and be _safe_.

“Which time you broke my heart were you actually talking about?” And then, thank god, Q sat down in the fucking chair and Eliot could stop worrying that he would fall and hurt himself.

Because apparently that was Eliot’s job. Eliot was the one who always did that. Hurting Quentin.

He stopped and thought. Maybe it was better this way. If he’d already broken Q’s heart twice, maybe it would just keep happening, maybe he just wasn’t good for Quentin Coldwater, because who could be? No one was good enough for Q. He deserved better than anything Eliot could ever offer him, that was for damned sure. He’d probably driven that sweet smile off Q’s face permanently.

But.

But.

_Fifty years. Who gets proof of concept like that?_

“I didn’t mean it to hurt,” Eliot said hesitantly. “The second time, I mean. Well, either time.” He was getting tangled up in his words and Eliot Waugh was never anything less than elegantly articulate.

But Quentin just sat in his chair, watching Eliot with both eyebrows raised in furious expectation. At least he wasn’t walking around the fucking room, endangering life and limb.

“I said it because I meant it,” Eliot started.

Quentin looked confused. Probably a pronoun problem, Eliot realized belatedly, cursing himself for his sudden lack of ability to speak coherently in the face of romantic confusion.

“I wasn’t sure how long I would have when I broke through, so I had to tell you the most important thing, as quickly as possible,” he explained.

Quentin still looked confused. Then his expression turned sour. “And the most important thing was, ‘Quentin, you were an idiot for ever thinking I might choose to be with you’?”

“No!” Eliot felt himself growing frustrated. Why was Q so intent on misunderstanding him, on assuming the worst about Eliot’s feelings?

Probably because he’d only shown Q the worst. In this timeline, at least.

“It was because you were right, and I had to tell you that. I _needed_ to tell you that. Fifty years. Who gets proof of concept like that? You were so right, Q, and I was such a fucking coward. I finally realized that, and I had to tell you as soon as possible. And that was the fastest way I could think of, before the monster took over again.”

Quentin stared at him. “You ... so you meant...”

Time to rip off the Band-Aid.

“I’m in love with you,” Eliot said suddenly. It was like his mouth had a mind of its own again. The words just came out, like with the morphine again, but this time it felt right. “That’s what I meant. We already know we work. God, you were so right, Q. I’m sorry I was such a dick about it. I’ve never had anything in my life that I was so afraid of losing—and then there was you. Fifty years of loving you, and then ... we were back here. And I was so terrified of losing you, Q, that I thought it would be better to stay friends than to take that chance again. What if it didn’t work this time, in this timeline, away from Fillory? And so I lied. I said I wouldn’t choose you. And fuck, Q, you have to know I’d choose you in any timeline, in any world there is, if I wasn’t such a fucking coward.” Eliot hated that he was lying there in a hospital bed, physically helpless, while pouring his heart out more vulnerably than he ever had in his life.

Quentin gripped the arms of the chair he was sitting in, and Eliot was afraid he was going to stand up again and give him a heart attack from worry. But Quentin just sat there, his knuckles white against the chair arms.

“You love me,” Quentin repeated slowly, his gaze not leaving Eliot’s now. He licked his lips, probably unconsciously, but Eliot noticed. “That’s what you were trying to say that day in the park.” Eliot nodded.

“I was trying to tell you, as quickly as possible, that I felt the same way you did in that conversation in the throne room, when you asked me to give us a chance. Now it’s me asking you. After everything I’ve said and done, are you still willing to take that chance?” Eliot felt like he might vomit, because he honestly didn’t know what Quentin would say, and he wasn’t accustomed to feeling uncertain in situations like this. As if he’d ever been in another situation like this. As if _anyone_ ever had.

Everything Julia had said made him believe Q still loved him, but everything in Eliot’s own heart made him believe that Q would be an idiot to risk anything on him, let alone something so important. Let alone Q’s own heart. How could he possibly trust Eliot that much, after everything he’d done, after everything Q had been through because of him?

And damn, the fucker was standing up again, and Eliot was actually about to tell him to sit the fuck down when he realized Q was walking a bit unsteadily toward the bed, where he sat in the hard plastic chair.

Quentin reached out and took Eliot’s hand, avoiding all the tubes and wires, and said again, more quietly this time, making it a terribly vulnerable question, “You love me?” His hand in Eliot’s was trembling.

“I love you,” Eliot replied, squeezing Q’s hand, though his grip was still weak. And in that moment, he realized vulnerability wasn’t a weakness but a strength, when it came from both sides.

Quentin bent his head down, his hair falling forward onto Eliot’s wrist, and he didn’t say anything right away. But then he kissed Eliot’s hand, his lips as familiar as they’d become during all those years in Fillory, and raised his head. “Let’s take that chance together,” he suggested, and Eliot nodded, everything in his chest feeling tight and fluttering. He wanted to kiss Q, but he was stuck in this damned bed with pain any time he tried to move.

“Kiss me?” he asked, and Quentin leaned over, putting both his hands on the rail of the hospital bed to support his own healing body, and pressed his lips to Eliot’s. It was far from their first kiss. Not even their first kiss in this timeline. But it was their first kiss moving forward together without magic, with only themselves and their feelings for each other to guide them.

There would be magic along the way. Or, at least, there had better be. Eliot still needed to ask more about that situation. But they would face it together.

Quentin sat back in the plastic chair again, smiling now. “I’d hoped,” he admitted shyly. “I’d hoped that’s what you meant, but I couldn’t believe it until you said it.”

“Kiss me again,” Eliot demanded, and Quentin eased himself out of the plastic chair to lean over the railing and oblige.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m @kimberquel on Tumblr


End file.
